"Shifting boundaries of public spaces in the age of Modern Urban development: The Study on Gated Societies and shopping Malls."

Unlike one's home or employment, public areas have the special quality of belonging to everyone. Because power is distributed much more widely in public than it is at work or at home, it is also much more unstable. In a public setting, people interact face-to-face with strangers. This research investigated the standards for the public sphere in a modern setting. For this research, the public sphere is the actual space where politics and culture are practiced. Numerous festivals, Leisure activities, shopping, gatherings of all sorts, take place in public areas. However, they are merely infrequent occurrences where individuals occupy areas that are typically used for different purposes. What defines a public area is the everyday activities that take place there. In a modern and rapid Urbanization, the definition of public spaces is rapidly changing, Moreover, this demands a sustainable Urban Public spaces in bigger cities. Apart from this there is a paucity of research in this context and the need is increasing therefore, this research focuses on a changing definition of public spaces and the dimensions of ideal public space (IPS). A sample of residents (n=500) of the major cities of KSA (Jeddah and Riyadh) was chosen for the study. The data was collected from the respondents visiting shopping malls and other public spaces more than 2 times in a week.  The data was statistically tested through covariance based SEM. The initial Analysis was carried out through SPSS 20.0. The study has implications for the developmental authorities and academicians working in the field of Urbanising research.